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gbrumfiel writes "Researchers in France have discovered the world's largest virus and given it a terrifying name: Pandoravirus. NPR reports it doesn't pose a threat to people, but its genetic code could hint at an unusual origin. The team believes that the virus may carry the genes from a long-dead branch of the tree of life, one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else. Other scientists are skeptical, but everyone agrees that the new giant virus is pretty cool."

The team believes that the virus may carry the genes from a long-dead branch of the tree of life, one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else.

Other scientists are skeptical

No shit? That's one heck of an extraordinary claim right there. It'd be very fascinating if true, but that's going to need some strong evidence backing it. Either way, a virus of its size is still quite interesting.

This kind of questioning showed up when the Mimivirus, the first (?) giant amoeba virus appeared, including the bit about degenerating into a virus as a survival strategy. It turned out that all of its genes came directly from the amoebae it was infecting; it's basically just really bad at reproducing. While it would be really neat to discover the remnants of a lost superphylum or kingdom, viruses mutate much too quickly for any informative signal to be preserved.

The reality is that we've only sequenced a tiny fraction of the Earth's biodiversity. There's a lot of stuff out there that's just more of the same, especially at the microbe level. The farther back you go, the lower the likelihood of finding a surviving isolate, which is why isolated biomes like Lake Vostok and the drilling site in Northern Ontario are so important.

The team believes that the virus may carry the genes from a long-dead branch of the tree of life, one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else.

Other scientists are skeptical

No shit? That's one heck of an extraordinary claim right there. It'd be very fascinating if true, but that's going to need some strong evidence backing it. Either way, a virus of its size is still quite interesting.

Dna in the virus. Composed of the same nucleotides found in all life on earth.So either all life on earth originated on mars (or somewhere), or these viruses originated on earth.

One case makes them simply interesting, the other makes for much better headlines and vastly more grant money.

"We believe that those new Pandoraviruses have emerged from a new ancestral cellular type that no longer exists," he says. That life could have even come from another planet, like Mars. "At this point we cannot actually disprove or disregard this type of extreme scenario," he says.

The naysayers:-

The virus's size is probably part of its survival strategy. Amoebas and other simple creatures could mistake it for bacteria and try to eat it, opening them up to infection. "The internal environment of the amoeba cell provides a very good playground for acquiring various kinds of genes from different sources," Koonin says. He thinks that the Pandoravirus's unusual genome may be a mishmash of random genetic material it's sucked up from its hosts.

I cite Occam's Razor -the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Apologies to the discoverers, but I think its far too early to point to any "ancestral cellular type that no longer exists".

Most virus species carry only RNA, but not all of them. The type knowns as retroviruses carry DNA, and actually gene manipulate their host, making them really tough to get rid of. Examples are HIV and Hepatitis.

Most viruses do carry RNA. But I believe retroviruses carry RNA also, and use reverse transcriptase to make DNA from the RNA, and then use regular transcription to make RNA for the virus. Retroviruses are just about impossible to get rid of if they integrate the DNA they make into the host genome along the way. According to Wikipedia, DNA viruses that first make RNA in the cell and then use reverse transcriptase to make DNA for the virus are called pararetroviruses.

Most virus species carry only RNA, but not all of them. The type knowns as retroviruses carry DNA, and actually gene manipulate their host, making them really tough to get rid of. Examples are HIV and Hepatitis.

I think your terminology is confused. Retroviruses carry RNA, which is then converted into DNA in the cell using the viral reverse transcriptase (typically integrating into the host genome), then back to RNA for protein translation. DNA viruses produce RNA using their own RNA polymerases, but their

The team believes that the virus may carry the genes from a long-dead branch of the tree of life, one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else.

Other scientists are skeptical

No shit? That's one heck of an extraordinary claim right there. It'd be very fascinating if true, but that's going to need some strong evidence backing it. Either way, a virus of its size is still quite interesting.

Easy to prove. Just compare the genetic material in the virus to all the other life we've found on Mars (or somewhere else).

It's almost certain that at least simple life exists on other planets, but it's bonkers to leap from finding genes you don't recognize on a planet full of life, to thinking they came from Mars. I understand people who are sitting around smoking pot and speculating like that, but scientists are supposed to apply sober reason to their conjectures.

I understand people who are sitting around smoking pot and speculating like that, but scientists are supposed to apply sober reason to their conjectures.

Why can't scientists do both? The actual paper is quite reasonable and sober, and methodologically sound as far as I can tell; the Mars bit was just a bit of hand-waving for the benefit of popular media. A little of this goes a long way (the notorious "arsenic bacteria" are a really excessive example), but we all get excited sometimes.

I would agree with you if there weren't so many episodes that were worse—Threshold (VOY), Genesis (TNG), Twilight (ENT), Spock's Brain (TOS), The Omega Glory (TOS)... I'd also like to call special attention to Journey's End (TNG) for being the worst Wesley episode imaginable, but technically that's not a premise issue.

Coincidentally, there was a Brian Cox doco on last night that mentioned the world's smallest insect, a wasp that measures 0.4mm, my 54yo eyes couldn't detect them but he described them as "very fine specs of dust". So a rough estimate says a young pair of eyes could pick out a group of less than 500 individuals. According to the same doco, if you exclude viruses from the tree of life then there is roughly 22 orders of magnitude between the largest trees and the smallest microbes. Basically the megavirus and wasp's sizes are less than three orders of magnitude apart, which is quite incredible since I'm used to thinking of viruses as basically large molecules (IIRC the smallest known viruses are composed of a mere 10,000 atoms).

Another example of how great marketing helps get your research funded. The reason this is being widely reported is because they chose a cool name. Pandoravirus. But how does Pandora's box come into this? When it comes to viruses bigger is lamer so size doesn't matter. It is not a threat to people nor anyone else except amoebas. The origins speculation is interesting, but this whole thing is being hyped up by the researchers. And possibly by the amoebas.

If Koonin's hypothesis is correct, it's a giant katamari that collects genes from the hosts it passes through. Pandora is a good name for that. Pan-dora was given "all the gifts" from all the gods, she just happened to open the wrong cornu copiae.

Not to worry. Megavirus had to be outdone by Pandoravirus. The next genus of virus will have to outdo the last, and so on.

I forsee the following names for future virus discoveries, in this order:

Megavirus
Pandoravirus-Epicvirus-Gigantivirus-Galactavirus (who later becomes a galaxy spanning super villian virus and renames himself Galactavus, or Galactus)-Universalvirus-Gigantovirus-OMGWTFITSHUGEvirus-OmegavirusAnd the final genus to be discovered will be named "Tiddlywinks." Yep.

Another example of how great marketing helps get your research funded. The reason this is being widely reported is because they chose a cool name.

Everyone in the academic sciences loves popular media exposure, but it usually doesn't matter for funding the individual research projects. The fact is, these viruses are an intrinsically important enough discovery that the research article would have been worthy of Science magazine regardless of the name they chose, and that's what they're going to be bragging a

Pandora is a Greek compound meaning all gifts (pan, as in pantheon--all the gods + dora, pl., as in Theodore--a gift of God). Just an FYI. I'd give the actual Greek but, alas, unicode support on/. does not have the greatest reputation. I see the term thrown about in literature sometimes, and I the think intent can be missed because folks only know the story from Hesiod. I suspect this is what Cameron had in mind when he thus christened the planetary home of his Lakota, er, Powhatan's Algonquin, ah... no, Na'vi, yeah that's what he called the sympathetic characters in his highly original film.

What, you didn't think the phrase originated with the Trojan Horse did you? That incident actually begot the phrase "Beware of Trojans, they're smegging dumbasses", which for some reason didn't withstand the test of time.

This too. It seems astounding such a narrative would be chosen. We know more about Mars than we do about our own oceans. I feel the oceanographer's pain now; constantly spoken over, ignored, and dismissed. No matter what, their cause just can't getting any love... despite our oceans being the most beautifully unknown and alluring ecosystem/world/etc in the whole universe.

The ocean's alone contain genetic time capsules; viruses and monsters.

Sorry, but that statement is still annoying me. Maybe it's the headache I woke up with, I don't know. Scoop a random sample of water, mud, fish tissue, whatever, out of any ocean. Take it to Woods Hole and in a day you'll know more about that ocean than we know about the entire surface of Mars, Venus, Mercury, Europa, and Titan combined. We know comparatively little about their atmospheres, and nothing at all about their subsurface.

Wow. Really do some reading, we know nothing about our oceans. A random sample says what? It only says about said sample. In all of my statements, I had been down modded. That's fine my by me; but speaks and represents the lack of critical thinking of/. mods and posters like you.

I can walk down to Puget Sound right now, spend half an hour and collect samples of water, rocks, algae, barnacles, sea anemones, jellyfish, flotsam, scum, sand, and air. If I were to take them to the University of Washington labs and have them analyzed I would have considerably more detailed data about our oceans than we've accumulated about the entire surface and atmosphere of Mars. I'm not really sure how much data you think we have about Mars, but even what Curiosity provides will be orders of magnitu

"'We believe that those new Pandoraviruses have emerged from a new ancestral cellular type that no longer exists,' he says. That life could have even come from another planet, like Mars. 'At this point we cannot actually disprove or disregard this type of extreme scenario,' he says."

i.e. Obama is a lizard person and Jesus was a free market capitalist!... At this point I cannot actually disprove or disregard this type of extreme scenario.

His first statement is just right but where does he get some Mars-born

In the linked npr article it is suspected that amoebas could mistake this virus for a bacteria because of its size and try to eat it. This way the virus would infect the amoeba.
If the size developed only for this most of the genetic material in it could be totally random and meaningless.

In the linked npr article it is suspected that amoebas could mistake this virus for a bacteria because of its size and try to eat it. This way the virus would infect the amoeba.
If the size developed only for this most of the genetic material in it could be totally random and meaningless.

In that case, it most likely would be multiple copies of DNA sequences already in the virus. Or multiple copies of a normal sized genome in an extra-large case.

Summary is misleading. It's not just one species of virus. The article abstract says they found TWO species of these Pandoraviruses. The "possibly started on Mars" is just hype. There's exactly zero evidence of that.

I suspect that in the long term, they'll find abundant evidence that they're related (perhaps not closely) to every other kind of life on Earth. Especially since they are viruses. Viruses can only target particular species of cells and would quickly become extinct in the absense of those species. How could they evolve the ability to infect Earth life on Mars? That makes no sense. If something was going to make it here from another planet and establish itself in our ecosphere, it wouldn't be viruses or any other species that depends on the presence of some particular species already being here.

I was the first one to read this story and point out the real hypothesis.... test it mother fuckers... I dare you.... I am *never* been wrong. You incompetent assholes make careers out my pastimes.

I got down modded twice as redundant because some asshat says exactly the same as me. Fuck off you dumb motherfuckers. No one gave as much insight as I had. You stupid pieces of shit. I'm done dealing with/. Bunch of fucking stupid monkeys in a barrel.